Register and sign up for the Software Design competition. Registration deadline is 1st Feb 2011, you must register before you submit for Software Design Round 1.

A Team may consist of up to four (4) eligible students.

Teams may be formed with students from different departments, schools and tertiary institutes from Singapore.

Round 1 submission can also be made individually; at this stage we are selecting the best ‘ideas’.

You cannot change Teams or otherwise remove yourself or anyone else from your Team after the close of the Registration Period

Round 1: Proposal Submission(Opens: NOW; Closes: Feb 2011)

For Round 1, individuals or teams need to submit their solution idea in the form of a proposal document in .docx or .doc or .pdf format. (Note: You first need to register on the Imagine Cup site prior to submitting your entry).

The word document template can be downloaded from here. You don’t have to strictly follow the template as long as you broadly answer the questions as mentioned in the template.

Try to limit your submission to about 5-7 pages.

Individuals or teams need to submit the completed proposal document to us via email to Imagine Cup Team at Crystal Edge. The submission closure date is not decided as of now, but it is likely to be mid-Feb. We will update this page with new information as and when available.

Multiple submissions are allowed by the individuals or teams

Top 20 ideas or proposals will be selected by end-Feb. If selected, you have to complete your team and sign up all the members of your team on the Imagine Cup official site.

All the 20 teams will be required to meet and present their ideas in person to the Microsoft team. At this stage, it can be just an idea, we do not expect to see a working prototype.

Top 12 teams will be selected to move into Round 2(Semi-Finals).

Round 2: Semi-Finals Judging (May 2011)

All 12 teams will complete a presentation and demo of their solution followed by Question/Answer session with a set of academic and industry judges.

The top 4 teams will be selected who will move to the final judging round.

Round 3: Finals Judging (May 2011)

The 4 teams will present their solutions to another set of academic and industry judges.

The Singapore Software Design champion will be chosen to represent Singapore at the worldwide finals.

Important Note: The above details on the local competition mechanisms may change slightly, we will keep updating this page on a regular basis so do look out for the updates. Register early so that we can send you notifications when updates are made. Registration on the website doesn’t bind you to submit, this way you can give it a shot and at the minimum get connected with the Imagine Cup team.III. Judging CriteriaRequired Elements your entry must contain all of the following required elements:

Your Team’s entry must address a social cause connected to the 2011 Theme: “Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems”.

Your Team’s application must run on the Microsoft .NET Framework. You may use any version of .NET.

Your application must be developed using at least one (1) of the products within the Visual Studio family (Express, Standard, Professional, or Team System) for development.

Optional Elements
Your Team’s entry must utilize features of at least one (1) of the optional elements:

10% – Problem Definition: How precise and relevant is the real world problem? How interesting or difficult to resolve – functionally or technically – is the problem being challenged? For this criterion, we only focus on the problem challenged, not on the solution created to solve this problem. How well does the project adhere to the current Imagine Cup Theme?

35% – Solution Design & Innovation: Does the application approach a new problem, or look at an old problem in a new way? Is the solution completely innovative or does it rely on an existing concept/technology? Does the application impact a large number of people very broadly, or impact a smaller number of people very deeply? To which degree does the application actually solve the current problem?

30% – Technical Architecture & User Experience: Is the system architecture broken down into logical chunks and modules? Is the project technically open to some evolution? Is it only made with a monolithic bloc or does it present interfaces enabling extensions (SDKs or APIs)? To which degree are the HMI (Human Machine Interfaces) intuitive, ergonomic and user friendly? Does the application leverage the presence of fresh and updated data?

15% – Business Viability: Is the application technically and economically viable? Is this solution only theoretical or does it have a realistic application for commercial purposes? (Not necessarily here and now, but eventually in the future and/or for certain markets).

10% – Presentation: The judges will be looking for oral presentations that provide background and context to the project, explain why the problem is an interesting one,
highlight how the system works, and include an insightful demonstration. Teams will also be evaluated on their ability to take questions from the judging panel.

(For Proposal Round, this 10% will be – Judge’s discretion).IV. Prizes and Acknowledgements
On completion of Round 2(Semi-Finals), each team member will receive a -

An Official Microsoft Imagine Cup 2011 certificate.

Access to the exclusive Microsoft Innovation Accelerator Program as part of which teams get to interact with industry experts to get inputs, suggestions, mentoring and feedback on their projects.

Prizes: Each team member will receive the following:

4th Place: Final Prizes TBA

3rd Place: Final Prizes TBA

2nd Place: Final Prizes TBA

1st Place: Final Prizes TBA + The opportunity to compete at the worldwide finals in New York City.

V. Support for Competitors

There will be on-going communication to competitors through online and on campus events.

VI. Final Word
We are excited about seeing what creativity and passion you guys bring to the table, we hope you take the first step in taking this challenge; we assure you we will make the journey of the local competition exciting, fruitful and fulfilling for all of you.
If you have any questions, concerns, clarifications, drop a comment here, ping on facebook or just shoot an email!